Mapping All the Way, by Elizabeth Swartz

Teach map skills at any level with shoe box towns and online tools

Being able to read maps is a skill we all need. It's also a skill that's fun to teach because of the all the options available.

The first thing that needs to be established is perspective. If you make a little town with houses, people and cars inside a shoe box, and ask a young child what it looks like, it helps the child gain the correct perspective. You can talk about symbols and map keys. Draw the first map on the board or the overhead.

Cardboard city.
Next, give groups of students a shoe box and manipulatives. Have each group create a town and a map to go with the town. Collect the maps and move the shoe boxes to different locations while the children are out of the room. When they come back, pass out the maps and ask them to match the maps with the proper town.

After that, you can have the class make maps of the classroom, the school, their bedrooms, houses, playgrounds, etc. You can combine mapping skills with writing very easily by asking about a child's last vacation or where a child got his or her new puppy. I usually let the children help decide which maps they will make.

The next level.
Older students can get more sophisticated with highway maps. They should be able to map ways to the mall, the playoff game or the dance. Once the maps are completed, use them to design the next level of your unit. Have the students write math questions using time and distance from the maps. Try making maps on graph paper and using coordinates for a map index, or making a map to go with a book being read in class. Have students read books that included maps for the reader, such as Patricia Reilly Giff's The Beast in Ms. Rooney's Room and The Candy Corn Contest (both from Yearling).

More than road maps.
In the middle grades, students discover that there are more kinds of maps than just road maps. Many different media forms can be used in making resource, landform, population or climate maps. Go to the library for a tour of some of the possibilities and then let the creativity flow!

Divide the class into groups and ask each group to make a different type of map of the same area. Provide a wide variety of materials: poster board, paint, clay. After the groups complete their work, discuss why there are so many different types of maps and what purposes they serve.

Also include in your unit a trip to the computer lab to experiment with the mapping programs that are available online. Compare the map-reading skills we use while reading a traditional road map with those skills used to interpret computer-generated directions.

You can use maps all year; with history, current events or dreams of the future. You can get there from here; you can get anywhere with good mapping skills!

For a reproducible of the road signs click here. PDF 370KB

Elizabeth Swartz is librarian at Watsontown Elementary School and Turbotville Elementary School in PA.